


Hunted

by caimanriseup



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Language, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 19:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caimanriseup/pseuds/caimanriseup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Karkat runs from the culling drones, he finds himself lost in the wilderness.  Luckily a certain troll is there to rescue him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunted

Karkat shivered, not entirely from the cold wind whistling through the scrubland. He tried to tell himself that the slowly brightening horizon meant that he was getting close the suburb he called home.

He thumped himself on the head. This had been perhaps the stupidest idea he had ever come up from. Past him sure had a way of giving even the most pan rotted morons a run for their standing. Panic had completely overridden his sense once he heard the buzz of far off culling drones. He had darted off, only pausing to throw some random items into his bag. Karkat hadn’t even thought of grabbing husktop, idiot.

Karkat quickened his pace. Dawn was coming; he could feel it in his bones. It wouldn’t be long before the few beasts that braved the Alternian sun showed their fearsome faces. The cool handle of Karkat’s scythe soothed him slightly. At least he hadn’t been stupid enough to run off without his weapon.

Every rustle made Karkat jump and curse. He’d spin around to face the enemy, but so far all he had met with was his own growing shadow. That was, until he stopped long enough to see a pair of golden troll eyes. He screamed, lashing out wildly with his scythe and all the swear words at his disposal in an attempt to look as threatening as possible, a technique learned from his lusus. Obviously, it made little of an impression on his attacker as something pounced onto his back. Karkat rolled over onto his stomach, despite every bit of survival advice ever, coming face to face with a snarling cavebeast, saliva dripping down its bared jaws. It had Karkat pinned under its enormous claws, each longer than his scythe, which was knocked several feet out of reach.

Karkat covered his face as a paw came swinging at his face, waiting for his messy end. But it never came. Something wet splashed against his face and slowly, slowly he opened his eyes. Bright red blood was splattered all over and he patted himself frantically, sure he had been injured. It took him a second to see that the cavebeast’s throat had been split open, blood spilling down. It gave a lurching gasp before collapsing.

“That was close.” Karkat jumped, scrambling to his feet and his weapon. A young troll girl, no more than five sweeps old stood in front of him. The blades on her hand snapped back, stained red. With her now free hands, she adjusted the blue hat that sat snugly on her head.

Karkat, who had fallen uncharacteristically silent, sputtered out, “What in nook-sucking hell is going on? Who are you?”

She giggled, “You’re funny. We have to get going though. It’s almost daytime.”She was right. The sun was just starting to work its way over the horizon. Karkat could feel his neck burning with the first hints of Alternian sun. Having no other choice, Karkat followed behind the green-blooded troll, walking a few steps behind her blue tail that trailed on the ground. She didn’t seem that menacing, but she had just split a cavebeast’s throat. He liked to think he was a decent judge of character, but trolls were known for their numerous psychoses, who knew with this one.

He tried to get some answers from the girl, but she shushed him until they got to her hive, carved out of the rolling hillside. Karkat ducked down inside, grateful for the cool dark that surrounded him. He was only able to enjoy for a second before he found himself, once again, pinned to the floor.

He screeched as a rough, sandy tongue licked his face. He slapped against the white fur of a lusus, yelling, “Get this thing off me!”

“Pounce!” she said, her lusus slowly getting off and walking over to her. Pounce butted her head against the troll’s hand. The troll absentmindedly rubbed Pounce’s head while Karkat brushed himself off.

“All right, who are you? Where the fuck am I?’

“You’re in my hive, of course! I’m Nepeta Leijon.”

There was a flash of recognition. Right, that was one of Terezi’s role playing buddies. Karkat didn’t know that much about Nepeta, besides she was obsessed with cats, but Terezi had never made any indication she could be a threat.

Now that Karkat had stepped down from load-hole clenching panic to annoyed apprehension, he took some time to look around her hive. It was dismally simple furniture wise, a couple of stained shelves, and pelts scattered all around. Karkat rubbed his neck, increasingly happy Nepeta hadn’t turned her claws against him.

What really drew his eye were the paintings that adorned the walls. They were all crude, nothing that would be seen in the halls of a high-blood art collection, but were still charming in their own way. A section had been separated from the others, showing numerous trolls in various pairings. Karkat walked over. As a somewhat self-proclaimed romance expert, he was very familiar with the existence of shipping walls, though he didn’t think he’d heard of one so extensive.

He jumped when Nepeta started talking in, engrossed in her art, “You’re Karkat, aren’t you?”

“What? How would you know that?”

“Oh, Terezi’s told me about you. I just figured because you look so grumpy.”

“Yeah, well you Terezi next time you talk to her that she’s lucky I haven’t stabbed my eyes out like Blueblood Troll who had Illicit Flush Relations with His Ancestor did dealing with all the moronic activity I have to everyday, her cackling and justice fetish at the top of the list.”

Nepeta laughed, “Terezi was right. You’re funny.”

“Terezi said I was funny?”

“Yeah! Actually, you might want to talk to her soon. I think she was worried when you weren’t responding. What were you doing out here anyway?”

Karkat crossed his arms across his chest. “I…I thought I heard culling drones around my hive.”

Nepeta’s eyes went wide. Karkat raised his hands. “L-look, I’ll leave soon. I wasn’t trying to bring trouble here. I freaked and ran.”

“No, I was just thinking how pawfully scary that was. And you can’t go anywhere with the sun coming up! You can stay here and I’ll go check it out tomorrow?”

Karkat scowled. Great, one of those trolls. Perhaps the sweeps of inbreeding had killed whatever gene promoted shame at such shitty puns. Still, he couldn’t let her go out and get herself culled. “There’s no way you can do that. What if one of those drones catches you? They’ll cull you if you’re in the way?”

“Don’t worry about me. They could never catch me.”

He frowned. It was true she wasn’t a pushover, but still…

Nepeta grabbed him by the shoulders, her small hands surprisingly steady and strong. “Come on, you must be exhausted.”

It was true. Sleep pulled heavily at his eyelids, but how could he sleep knowing he could be culled at any second. He was shoved at Pounce de Leon, who wrapped an enormous paw around him and started licking his head. “Ah, what the hell? Stop it!”

“Trust me; you’ll sleep great with Pounce. Sometimes I think he’s even better than recuperacoon.”

Karkat groaned, unable to escape for now. He figured he might as well wait for Nepeta to wander off. He had to admit Pounce did make a surprisingly comfortable place to rest his head. He supposed it wouldn’t be too much harm if he rested for a bit.

Nepeta rested against Pounce’s back on the opposite side of Karkat. She didn’t say anything, though Karkat was pretty sure that he saw her glance at him occasionally. He knew he should have been more annoyed, but he found her puurrsence reassuring.

“Oh, Goddamn it,” he thought before slipping to sleep. Those puns were infectious.


End file.
